Luke 5:36-39 (BSB) “He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Jesus did not come to repair or prop up up the old Mosaic system. Its time was over. It had run its course and served it purpose. A new day had come. This was not time to sew a patch on an old rend, nor even to breathe all new life into it. It could not contain what was to be poured out. Only new creatures would do. New wineskins to receive the new wine. New men as well as new life. A new covenant, as well as a new Mediator.

So it is today. All attempts to merge, marry or unite the Old and the New Covenants is out of order. Yes, there is connection. The Old portends the New in astounding and countless ways. But just as a baby is conceived in the womb of its mother, yet the two are just that – two, so for a season they may share one systemic life – and yet they are not somehow merged into one entity. From the moment of conception – they are two.

We might say that the Church was always in utero (in Israel – there was always a believing remnant) until Pentecost. Israel bore her, and they share so much. And yet each is its own when all is said and done. Going back to Old Covenant rites and rituals, days, observances and customs fails to recognize the transition which has occurred. It is the failure to recognize this which causes so much confusion about the Believer’s relationship to the Law. The Law hasn’t changed, we have. And in the change, the entire relationship is also changed.

Christians are not “newized” Old Testament Believers. Out of the two (Believing Jews and Gentiles) He has made one new man (Eph. 2:15). We do not go back to pick this here and that there from the Old Covenant system. We have a new garment of the righteousness of Christ to wear, not the old garment of its picture. We are new wineskins, born again as new creatures, not Old Covenant believers jazzed up. Our covenant has been explicated (Jer. 31; Heb. 8), inaugurated (Luke 22:20), ratified (Heb. 9:16) and is being probated by The Spirit (Eph. 1:14). We no longer live under the old arrangement of signs, pictures, tokens and allegories. Ours is the fulfillment in Christ.

We drink the new wine poured into new wineskins. Some will always go back and say the “old is better.” They want no change. But Christ has come. The new day has dawned. The Kingdom has drawn near. The Spirit has been poured out. Look up – for your redemption draws nigh. Soon, ALL things will be made new. And He will live and reign in His manifest glory before the cosmos.

Hallelujah!